Dear Bob,
I’m going to ask you to stop saying “Because of Tuskegee” whenever we talk about the pervasive problem of medical racism at Fred Med.
The Tuskegee Experiment, in which black men were denied treatment for syphilis and lied to about their diagnosis, was indeed an egregious crime. Research has shown that disclosure of the medical abuse at Tuskegee caused black patients to distrust doctors and resulted in a significant drop in black life expectancy compared to whites.
But when, as a white man, you reference Tuskegee you do it in a way that minimizes the hundreds of years of medical discrimination against black people.
You want to make it sound as if there were one single incident of racism in the fairly distant past, instead of a systemic problem that is very much with us today.
Do we refer to World War 2 as Pearl Harbor? No, we do not. Pearl Harbor was one battle in four years of war that killed 400,000 Americans.
Tuskegee was one particularly horrible example of the usual cruel treatment of black patients.
Unequal access to healthcare, unequal facilities, unequal research, and persistent medical racism continues to plague the US to this day.
As a white person, I am a beneficiary of the racist policies that channel government money to hospitals in white neighborhoods and advantage privileged people like myself.
As a woman, I also have experienced sexist and discriminatory care within that bubble of privilege and can tell you that it is repeated acts that slowly add up to cumulatively undermine trust.
Bob, you like to get credit for knowing about the horrors of Tuskegee and I see the little glint of glee in your eye as you drop the name at Fred’s University events. There is something malicious in your enjoyment of your knowledge of this shameful chapter in American history.
When you bring it up, I feel the pleasure you have in your position of superiority and your comfortable self-congratulation for having escaped a worse fate.
Just stop, Bob.
And while you are looking in the mirror, remember how I told you a year ago that you should get that mole checked out and you laughed at me? As a dermatologist, I can tell you have now waited too long.
Sincerely,
The “Lady” You Interrupted Yesterday In the Meeting About Medical Racism
Watch this video on medical racism:
Also Read: Racism is A Medical Error